RI may lose natural forest by 2015, says enviro expert

Indonesia may lose its status as the world's third-largest forest nation by 2015 as the country's natural forests are likely to disappear due to deforestation and lax efforts to replant logged forest areas.

Rinekso Soekmadi, a forestry expert from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB) said the government should take tough action to force forest concession holders (HPH) to replant logged forest areas."Otherwise, all natural forests will be lost by 2015. This is the worst case scenario based on current rates of deforestation," he said.

The government has allocated 64 million hectares of natural forests, out of the country's 120 million, as forest concession areas that can be legally logged.

Rinekso, IPB's director of international cooperation, said that much of the total 120 million hectares of natural forests, were located in forest concession areas.

"The declining trend of deforestation from 2.8 million hectares in the 1990s to the current level of about 1 million hectares is not due to improved forestry management," he said.

"It is because we don't have enough existing forests anymore."

Rinekso said the government's forestry management gave too many benefits to concession holders as there was no clear policy requiring them to take responsibility for severely depleting the country's forests.